Re: Response From Dave Niswonger to Paul Black Letter

[Robert Pries <robertpries@embarqmail.com>]

I have left Paulbs Letter at the end of this very long post so that everyone can refer back to it. I really appreciate that Paul has taken the time to raise these issues. I agree with much of what Paul is saying with the exception of some Key points. I also believe the way forward may be different than any of the current thinking and would like to propose several new approaches.

First I wish to put all this in context. The American Iris Society has been on a downward trajectory for the last 17 years. At first it was not understood. And even now there are some that are STILL in denial, but you do not go from a membership of over 8,000 to a membership of 4,000 and claim success. I have spent weeks of time interviewing principles in other plant societies, researching data on the internet and talking with Garden Writers, horticulturalists, etc trying to understand how to turn this around. This type of market research should always be a part of the PR office I chair and frankly I could use of team of people that could help acquire data, assimilate it and develop strategies to act upon it. 

My research leads me to believe that the natural size of our Society should be around 12,000 members. That said I believe if the Iris Society would have been more pro-active instead of just reactive they could still be at this level. While comparing notes with a director of another plant society director, they commented, bYour just about ten years behind usb. While I do not believe this is exactly true, I would ask you to think about the amount of change in the world in the last ten years and ask yourself, Has the AIS changed as fast?.

I have tried to understand what brings people to join and participate in a plant society. I have boiled it down to an acronym PIPP. Plants, Information, People, and Praise probably in that order. Let me address each and how they relate to Paulbs suggestions.

PLANTS: In 1980 I came to the Iris Society because I was looking for Dwarf Iris and species. I believe for most people the contact and interest in the Iris societies develops because of plants. Thatbs what we are all about. Years ago in searching through garden magazines you would discover ads for AIS. By joining you would find sources for all types of Irises advertized in the Bulletin. Clubs plant sales, shows, etc also all brought people into the Iris society because they were looking for plants. Club sales and shows still function this way, but Bulletin and Magazine advertizing serves a new role I will explain in a minute. Today most gardeners are going to the internet if they are looking for a particular Iris.

But first let me suggest that AIS as an organization does not have enough input from hybridizers and nurseries. We should be working together to the benefit of all. I have suggested the possibility of a trade association of nurseryman and hybridizers that could work with AIS. And even if that could not happen, at least a liaison to the board could be created that represents the industry. How could this be useful? It could develop a code of ethics for Iris nurseries. Members of the Iris society already practice such a code although I do not believe there is a formulation of such anywhere. The first basic tenet is that Irises are sold true to name. Today there are large nurseries outside the iris society, who do not care, and e-bay nurseries that are downright fraudulent. The new role of the Iris Society is validation of sources if only by their association with AIS. AIS has not even discussed these problems and we ask ourselves why are people going to Davebs Garden and their Garden Watchdog.

If there was such a structure I believe Paulbs point one could be implemented quickly and point two worked out also, although perhaps in a different way than he is suggesting on point two.. 

 Because the world is changing and the internet has become so important, I expect E-memberships to be where the AIS will gain the money to operate the society and prevent the print services we already provide from disappearing. Presently the only place left to cut to balance the budget would be an issue of the bulletin. But by bringing in other revenue from e-membership and other services I believe we can prevent this. There are greater improvements on the way that will make a subscription even more desirable. 

But AIS is very poor at marketing itself. Despite my ranting there are many areas in which we do things terribly. Let me suggest an element that could help both nurserymen and AIS gaining members. The Daylily Society has a program where they give new members a coupon for the price of their membership. They do a much better job of marketing their membership than AIS at least in some areas of their website. The coupon is one of those things that could just tip the scales as to whether to join or not. I will let each of you do your own homework. Go to the American Hemerocallis Society website and see how they do it. Even though the nurseries compete for the customers as to how they will honor the coupon, they can benefit by additional business. Before AIS gets a big head, let me point out that the nurseryman do a lot more for the society then it does for them. But when we turn this society around that will change. There is good evidence that with the Iris Encyclopedia and other improvements, the AIS website could generate more than 30,000-40,000 unique visitors a month during peak season. And I believe we could bring a great deal of business to nurseries. 

Now let me address the area where Paul and I disagree. As I have said before, people come to the Iris Society for plants. They want to have the best, or most interesting, or rarest in the World not just the USA. Although including foreign Irises in the award system does not necessarily bring them to North Amerca, excluding them could easily have an adverse effect. With phyto-sanitary certificates and more and more regulations it is getting harder and harder to get the worldbs plants into our country. Instead of limiting possibilities we should be trying to expand them. Last Year when it was revealed that Decadence and Slovak King could not compete on the Ballot for the Dykes Medal, the Medal lost some of its luster in the eyes of many irisarians. They assumed that it represented the Best of the Irises grown in this country not just the best produced by North American hybridizers. For the 50 years after World War Two, Americans had a huge advantage. This countrybs gene pool of Irises had not been plowed under to grow food as happened in much of Europe. We were way ahead of the rest of the world. We shared Irises with overseas hybridizers in exchange for species that grew in their native lands. Everyone benefited. Now overseas hybridizers have done some remarkable things in several types of irises and continue to share them with us. The more we take a chauvinistic American viewpoint the more everyone looses. Now is not the time for the AIS to turn inward. There are many types of organizations that would replace us. Limiting our awards in my mind would be one more way we could weaken the Society. Remember that plants are what people want not just USA plants.

INFORMATION; Hear is where we have some of our biggest failure in the last ten years People used to come to the plant societies for information. But in todaybs internet world information is all over the place. Our presence on the internet was superceded by Wikipedia, Davebs Garden and over a dozen other sites that were providing more content than AIS. Who needed the plant societies? Several plant societies responded with Daylily Dictionaries, Daff-Net/Daff-Seek, And Bulb wikis. While those societies continued to grow the AIS had already started its decline The Daylily society that was smaller than us grew past us while we fell. Now all plant societies are suffering and those that had been successful when we were not are doing even more change. We are catching up as some of the things we are doing I believe will be even better than what the other websites have done. But much is not in place yet. We still have to have a bylaws change to allow the addition of e-memberships. If we could have accomplished much of this before the current economic collapse the results would have been much better than they will be now. It will take longer to get the growth I believe we can achieve and it will take a better organized organization than we have now. 

But e-membership can address another of Paulbs points. Right now it is horribly expensive for members to be members in AIS and all the sections. The sections are much more nimble when it comes to change than AIS. Two already have e-memberships and others have them in the works. It will become easier for sections to provide bulletins and less a cost as fewer have to be printed. With cheaper rates it is likely that more AIS judges and members will participate in more sections at least through e-memberships. There is one point that is still a problem,  Fewer members in AIS the workforce available to edit and write articles for all these groups until we can grow members again.. But I also think e-memberships will bring more younger and more energetic members to the society. But this transition period of raising the sinking ship and sending it in new directions will be painful. 

As we learn how to benefit from the internet old sources of revenue in the iris society can be done away with or with more equitable charges. Perhaps we will be able to eliminate charges for registration for everyone but we are not there yet and sadly it is very hard to get AIS to create a business plan. Too much of the society is done item per item as opposed to creating a comprehensive strategy.  Even small investments in new products tend to be sidelined if there is any risk involved. Yet if you are providing new things you have new sources of revenue.

PEOPLE AND PRAISE:  Another reason people join is for the socialization. As membership declines there are fewer people to man clubs and do activities. It is hard to believe that we are still doing all the things we did when we had twice the number of people in the society. If so I expect a number of people are headed for burnout.
The Iris Society does a poor job of praise. Often by the time some one is honored they are so old most members do not even know what their accomplishments were. The enormous success of the Master Gardeners, which I believe is the fastest growing plant organization, is based on praise. People join because they want to make a contribution to society and enjoy being recognized for that contribution. Does anyone believe that it is a great honor to be an AIS judge? Are we respecting the time and work it takes to put on an iris show. The Iris Encyclopedia allows people to help build something bigger than all of us and each picture that is entered recognizes who entered it and photographed it. We need more ways in which people can contribute. I believe with Dave that the greater number of sections and Iris groups allows for greater participation. The contributions of many have created an awesome Iris society that can be even better. I realize I have not covered all Paulbs points but I am wearing out typing and you are wearing out reading, so I will cease for now. But I think the better AIS address PIPP to more successful it will be.

October 20, 2010

American Iris Society 
Board Members

RE:  Suggestions and thoughts

Dear Board Members,

Jean Clay Plank was always aware of the contribution hybridizers make to AIS.  She was also aware that there are actions that AIS can take to help promote and support hybridizers, of which I am one.  One of her mandates during her term as AIS President was to solicit and act upon ideas and suggestions from us.  I was woefully negligent by not contributing very much to that process.  I would like do a little to remedy that by comment on several aspects of AIS with some suggestions that might be considered.  Some of these can be considered immediately while others are longer term.

1.	Extension of registration name reserve from 3 to 5 years.  Ibve visited with many hybridizers about the 3 year expiration of reserved names for registration purposes.  All have been in favor of extending this to 5 years as it was some years back.  Times have changed and the justification for the reduced reserve time has also changed.  At the time it was reduced, one of the justifications was the time and effort it took to track these reserves since it was a completely manual paper system.  Now that this process has been automated, there should be no more work to track a name reserved for 3 years as opposed to 5 years.  It was also reported at the time of this change that there was a very low percentage of names that werenbt being introduced within that 5 year period.  That has also changed with many hybridizers already either having to make a dummy registrations to hold the name or paying another reserve fee.   I think asking for names to be held in reserve for 5 years is a legitimate request given the large increase in registration fees levied on hybridizers without asking for input from us.

2.	Requirement that a registration fee be implemented on overseas/foreign registrations.  As with other aspects of AIS, the lack of a registration fee for overseas reservations is rooted in history.  Again, times have changed drastically.  The justifications for not charging a fee are no longer valid.  The biggest one was transfer of money.  With the use of credit card and wire transfers, this is no longer a problem.  The reasons for doing it far outweigh the negatives.  At this time, overseas registrations make half or more of the R & I.  In effect, North American AIS hybridizers are completely subsidizing overseas registrations.  With no reasonable fee to deter them, overseas hybridizers are registering and reserving ever larger numbers of names.  Implementation of this increase would need to be worked out with the AIS Registrar, Treasurer and others who have expertise in this area.  I think it is no longer acceptable to ask hybridizers in this country to continue to subsidize overseas registrations.  We should remember that any hybridizer in any country can make a choice whether to register a variety or not.  

3.	AIS awards.  I wrote to Clarence Mahan and also Roy Epperson about what I consider to be a very unfair inclusion of non-North American varieties in the AIS awards system.  I received no reply from either.  Ibll approach the subject one more time.  First let me say that Ibm not advocating this because I havenbt received my share of AIS awards.  I most definitely have received my share and probably more than is warranted.  Ibm writing it because I think each and every North American hybridizer deserves the full support and attention of the American Iris Society judges.  I will make several comments on why I think it isnbt a correct policy to include foreign originations in our awards system.

Our organization is the American Iris Society.  It isnbt the World Iris Society.  It is the American Iris Society and as such should be an organization for the support and promotion of irises originated in North America.  Most other countries have their own awards system.  If they donbt have an awards system and they want one then they should take the time and effort to create it.

One of the reasons given for including them in the awards system is that it would encourage registration of hybrids from other countries that might not otherwise be registered.  I would say that is completely without merit.  The reason most foreign hybrids get registered and introduced in this country is because someone in the U. S. imports them, helps with or registers them and markets them.  I can think of no instance where an overseas hybridizer registered their variety based on the possibility it might win an AIS award.  The Internet has also had a profound effect on the ability of hybridizers to distribute their hybrids.  Overseas hybridizers can distribute their hybrids almost anywhere they want without assistance from AIS or North American commercial gardens.  

AIS, through its members and hybridizers, took the time and effort to set up this system of awards, trains the judges, prepares and tabulates the ballots.  It is a lot of work.  The ballot is already large and difficult to deal with even for someone like myself who sees a lot of irises.  With the maturing of our judges, it becomes increasingly difficult to adequately fulfill the obligations of an AIS judge.  The possibility of the ballot becoming increasingly larger because of overseas hybrids is very real.  We have to look at what effect all those 100bs of overseas registrations will have on our system if they are introduced in the way that they are eligible for AIS awards.

The following have to do more with overall structure of AIS.

4.	Adequacy of Species-X classification.  It seems to me that a problem arises when a class has been created that creates conflict and misunderstanding rather than adding a positive benefit to the classification system.  I recognize and applaud the knowledgeable members who contributed to the creation of this class.  I understand that the intentions were to further innovative development of hybrids.  Sometimes that crazy blaw of unintended consequencesb diminishes the desired effect of some of these changes.

In some cases it has pitted members more interested in beardless irises against ones interested in bearded irises.  There has been much discussion about this that I wonbt repeat here.  There is also a conception that these hybrids should more closely resemble the species than the more modern hybrids.  I question this idea.  It seems that part of our goal is to improve not only the plant habits but also the form of the flowers.  It seems the improvement of form is one of the goals of hybridizing.  If one wants them to remain more species like then why not continue to work at the species level.

The class was purposely left loosely defined to encourage innovation.  The real effect of this lack of definition has led to much confusion for hybridizers, judges and the general public.  Each hybridizer has their own interpretation of what the class is and this creates confusion and conflict.  In speaking to other judges I find that most donbt understand what the class is and how to judge it based on the loose definitions provided.  Judges trainers are just as confused about how to explain the class and how to judge it.  The general public and more specifically garden writers have no idea what a bSpecies-Xb variety is.  They as well as most irisarians donbt know whether the variety is bearded or beardless, whether it most closely approximates a Siberian, an Ensata, a SDB, a TB or any of the other classes.  If they look for information in the R and I, all they will find is bSpecies-Xb and a description.  Unless they have the ability and resource to research parentages, they have no idea what it is.  Very few will take the time to do such research.  The effect is these innovations arenbt covered in gardening publications.

It seems to me that if the class is going to continue, that as a minimum, part of the registration needs to designate the class that the hybrid most closely approximates.  It seems to me that further definition of the class is necessary. 

5.	Dwarf Iris Section.  The combining of the Dwarf and Median Iris sections has been discussed for some time.  At this time a majority of people involved with these sections agree that they should be combined.  Without going into a lot of discussion, I think it is time that there be a recommendation to combine the two sections and that work begin to accomplish that.

6.	AIS Sections.  I think Lincolnbs famous words, ba house divided against itself cannot standb, may have something valuable to offer AIS.  The division Lincoln speaks of is extreme but still speaks to what I consider a problem for AIS.  I can think of no other plant society that is factioned into separate and autonomous sections with a full organizational structure within each one.  The rose society doesnbt have separate floribunda, damask or tea sections.  The hosta society doesnbt have separate sections based on leaf size or color.  The daylily society doesnbt have sections based on miniature, pony or spider forms.  It is difficult for me to understand the reasoning and necessity of having 9 stand alone sections, each with its own board of directors, publications, fund raising, etc.  The waste of time, talent and resources should be quickly evident.  The problem isnbt from the presence of sections but the very wasteful duplication.  The amount of money for someone to join all the sections and AIS is a disincentive for people to join AIS at all.  In a time when membership and peoplebs involvement is dropping it seems there should be a better way forward.  It seems to me that all our best efforts should be channeled into the national society and national publication.  When the public joins AIS they are expecting a bulletin that at least in some part represents what they are interested in.  As it stands, if someone is interested in Spurias, it might be 2 years before they ever read anything about that group.  I think they wonbt stay a member very long.  

I might suggest one possible solution that I also suggested to Clarence Mahan when he was President of AIS.  Instead of each section having their own publication, is it possible for there to be a bmedia personb in each section that can collect and organize articles and information that can be published in the national bulletin?  Instead of putting money into separate publications that only a limited number of members have access to, is it possible for each section to sponsor and pay for space in the national bulletin to publish their articles?  In this way the totality of the membership is able read all this material without joining individual sections.  With an enhanced and larger bulletin, an increase in membership would be appropriate to offset increased costs.  AIS could routinely designate some space for each section to fill as a part of the bulletin.  This space would be bfreeb, so to speak, to the sections.  It would be in addition to the bpaid for by sectionsb space.  I think it would be expected that membership fees for sections would decrease to reflect the absence of individual publications.  Some fundraising by sections would be necessary to pay for publication costs.

When a commercial entity advertises in a section publication, they receive no true benefit. This advertising doesnbt reach and potential customers.  It is in effect a donation to the section.      

These are only some formative thoughts on such changes.  I realize it is much more complex than what my few words indicate and that it will require a concerted and diplomatic effort on the part of a numbers for any such changes to occur.  A very smart and successful businessman said that when things arenbt working well, an organization must critically examine everything they think they know and keep the parts that make sense and drop the parts that donbt work.

Thank you for the opportunity to express what I trust are helpful and useful ideas that might help advance AIS.

Paul Black

----- Original Message -----
From: "John I Jones" <jijones@usjoneses.com>
To: aisdiscuss@aisboard.org
Cc: "BLACK PAUL" <midamerg@earthlink.net>
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 5:45:48 PM
Subject: [AISdiscuss] Response From Dave Niswonger to Paul Black Letter

Attached.

John

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to the AIS Secretary
<aissecretary@irises.org>
The archives for AISDiscuss are at:
http://www.aisboard.org/lists/aisdiscuss/